Faculty
Heather Preisendanz
Professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering
The fate, transport, and impacts of emerging contaminants in the environment.
Tanya Renner
Associate Professor of Entomology
Evolution of chemical and structural defense. Molecular evolution, evolutionary genomics, and transcriptomics. Origins and evolution of carnivorous plants.
Cristina Rosa
Associate Professor of Plant Pathology & Environmental Microbiology
Plant Virology, interaction of plant viruses with their insects as vectors and with their plant hosts. Virus evolution, exploration of plant viromes, viral co-infections, effect of climate change on viral resistant breaking strains. Use of nanotechnologies for virus detection and virus disease management.
Autumn Sabo
Assistant Professor of Biology (Beaver)
How anthropogenic stressors affect plant communities, conservation, and restoration options. Recent work has focused on how deer and silvicultural techniques impact forest understories, with future projects likely extending to rare and invasive plant biology as well as climate change adaptation.
Ruairidh Sawers
Assistant Professor of Plant Response to Abiotic Stress
Local adaptation and stress tolerance in crop plants and their wild relatives; plant nutrition; arbuscular mycorrhizae; maize genetics and genomics.
Katriona Shea
Professor of Biology; Alumni Professor in the Biological Sciences
The use of ecological theory in population management.
Blair Siegfried
Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Education, College of Agricultural Sciences
Mary Ann Smith
Biology Lecturer (Schuylkill)
The isolation of microorganisms with the potential for antibiotic production within soil and sourdough systems
Ming Tien
Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Characterization and biochemical analysis of cellulose synthesis in a variety of organisms. Mechanism and regulation of fungal degradation of lignin. Dissimilatory Iron reduction.
Megan Van Etten
Associate Professor of Biology (Scranton)
The ecological and evolutionary consequences of human-mediated changes
Yinong Yang
Professor of Plant Pathology and Environmental Microbiology
Signal perception and transduction in rice-pathogen interactions. Molecular and genomic strategies for increasing disease resistance and drought tolerance in cereal crops.
Jitao Zou
Research Professor of Plant Lipid Metabolism and Abiotic Stress Response
Plant lipid metabolism. Metabolic pathway interactions and membrane lipid turnover in plants under abiotic stress. Seed development and seed oil biotechnology.